Meimei Cheshaneko
General Information ☯'Personality' Meimei is intensely, cripplingly shy, so much so that she almost never shows herself to other people. On the rare, rare occasion when she can be coaxed into making an appearance, she tends to hide her face behind her hair and turns beet red as soon as anyone so much as looks at her, and most of the time she can barely manage to stammer a single word, let alone carry on a conversation. Because of this, she usually chooses to make herself invisible, though even that doesn't cure her shyness completely. Luckily for her, she is also a proficient user of shikigami, which she can and often does use as go-betweens for speaking with other people, with Mai, her strongest and most intelligent shikigami, being her preferred messenger. Her shikigami are also her closest friends and the only ones she can speak to with anything approaching normality, though Mai does still often fluster her with her teasing. In general, despite her aversion to socialization, Meimei is a kind person, but she is also very curious, which can sometimes lead her to stick her nose where it doesn't belong. Luckily, she is both smart and powerful enough that she is rarely in any personal danger from this, but her curiosity can sometimes cause problems for others without her meaning to. Most of the time, though, she satisfies her curiosity through intellectual means, spending her days holed up in her home with her sizable collection of books, reading just about anything she can get her hands on. As a result, she is probably one of the most well-read people in Gensokyo, beaten perhaps only by Hieda no Akyuu. ☯'Appearance' Meimei very rarely shows herself in front of others, but when she does, she usually looks like a young girl with pale skin, bright green, catlike eyes, straight black hair that comes all the way down to her ankles, and the ears and tail of a black cat. However, as a Cheshire bakeneko, she can, and often does, change her appearance any way she wants, so this is merely the default appearance that she uses whenever she is forced into showing herself. Most of the time, due to her shyness, she is nothing more than a disembodied voice. She can alter her clothing at will, too, but she has an affinity for frilly, ribbon-covered dresses and the color black, so when she does appear she usually wears something along those lines. In fact, black ribbons have come to be something of a personal symbol for her, as she'll often use them to mark her influence in such ways as attaching them to various forms she takes or incorporating them into her attacks, among other things. ☯'Theme Songs' * Ib - Memory (Regular) * Mario & Luigi Paper Jam - Final Battle (Battle) * Ib - Memory Winter Remix (Last Word) Backstory Originally an ordinary black cat, Meimei once belonged to a powerful magician, who kept her as his sole companion during his research into more and more powerful magics. Perhaps because of her exposure to his magic, or because of the love and care he treated her with, eventually, she awakened as a youkai, gaining the power of speech among other supernatural abilities. When her master discovered this, instead of driving her away or killing her, he accepted her, taking her on as his apprentice and assistant. Over time he came to see her like a daughter, and she in turn came to think of him like a father. As the magician's power grew, however, so did the suspicions of other humans - not helped by the nearly hermetic lifestyle he led, nor by the rumors that his apprentice was a youkai - and one night, a mob attacked his home while he slept and burned it down. The magician, unfortunately, didn't wake up in time, but Meimei did manage to escape, and she killed as many of those responsible as she could before fleeing into the wild. She spent several years grieving, but once she recovered, she decided to continue teaching herself magic, in memory of her late master. Many centuries later, she wandered into Gensokyo and made herself a home in a remote part of the Forest of Magic, where she has lived quietly ever since. Story ☯'Two-Tailed Curse' () ☯'Heat Wave' () Relationships ☯'Eirin Yagokoro' The two mutually respect one another as being among the most powerful minds in Gensokyo, and Meimei often consults with Eirin whenever she gets stuck in her research. However, their relationship is a purely academic one, though Eirin is much closer friends with Mai. ☯[[Kamei no Yuuko|'Kamei no Yuuko']] The two of them have a close professional relationship, and are something like friends. However, they have never met in person, and they do not usually interact outside of an academic context. Mai, on the other hand, is much closer friends with Yuuko, whom she often visits on behalf of her master. Meimei and Yuuko both regularly swap magical research, and have collaborated on a few small projects. They originally met through Patchouli Knowledge, who is their mutual friend. ☯'Kosuzu Motoori' Meimei often borrows books from her shop, Suzunaan, usually sending either Miki or Maki to pick up and return books for her. However, the two interact little outside of this. ☯'Patchouli Knowledge' The two of them are friends, being fellow book-lovers, magicians, and shut-ins. Although they have never met in person, they do regularly exchange written correspondence and Meimei often sends her shikigami, usually Mai, to deliver messages or borrow books. The two have also collaborated on several projects in the past, including the rocket Patchouli created during the Second Lunar War. ☯'Yukari Yakumo' Yukari finds Meimei adorable and fun to tease, so she often visits her for that express purpose. Meimei herself has mixed feelings about this, but she does consider Yukari a friend, and the two often exchange correspondence and magical knowledge. Their shikigami are also fairly close to one another, with Mai being friends with Ran and something of an older sister figure to Chen and Momo being an occasional playmate of Chen's. Abilities ☯'Ability to Manipulate Appearances' She is capable of manipulating appearances, both her own and those of other people and things. This includes creating illusions, but is not limited to them, as she can actually use this power to change the physical shape and properties of things, essentially allowing her to transform anything into anything else. This, naturally, has an enormous number of applications, from creating weapons out of rocks or blades of grass to making an infinite number of duplicates of herself to turning her foes into mice or cockroaches, among many, many more. The possibilities are practically endless. The most common application Meimei uses her power for is to erase her own body, essentially making herself both invisible and intangible, though she still exists at a specific point at any given time and can still see, hear, and speak. As a side effect of doing this, though, she becomes almost completely unburdened by physical limitations and gains the ability to travel vast distances in very short amounts of time, effectively allowing her to teleport. However, while this ability is powerful, it is limited by the fact that she cannot change the innate nature of a thing - that is, she cannot turn a non-living thing into a living one, or a living thing into a non-living one, and she cannot separate a soul or mind from its body. This means that, while she could use her power to separate someone's head from their body if she wanted, both the head and the body would not only remain alive but also retain their connection with one another and be able to act in concert. Similarly, when she makes duplicates of things, they all share the same mind and soul if they had one originally and, if any of them is hurt, damaged, or destroyed, the same thing will happen to all of them. Also, even if she turns someone into something else, they will retain any powers that were tied to their spirit, and because it can take some time for a spirit to adjust to its new body, it is possible, though difficult, to return to one's original form if one's will is strong enough, as long as the adjustment is not complete. It usually takes around a week for a soul to become completely adjusted to its body, after which the only way for a person to change back is if someone like Meimei changes them back with a second transformation. This applies to the kami in inanimate objects, too, which retain the pattern of their original shapes for some time even after being transformed, and Meimei can use this to revert an object back to its original shape even without knowing every detail. ☯'Mastery of Magic' Meimei also has the ability to wield many powerful forms of magic, including most types of elemental magic, as well as other, more obscure spells. Due to her constant study, she can use many of these spells with nothing more than a thought, but some more complicated spells may require greater concentration. ☯'Mastery of Shikigami' On top of everything else, Meimei also has several shikigami under her command, the most powerful of which, Mai, is strong enough to stand among Gensokyo's more powerful residents in her own right. Her other notable shikigami include Miki and Maki, a pair of mouse youkai; Momo, a rabbit youkai; Jaba and Waka, a pair of dragons; and Moemi, a devil who helps manage Meimei's household. Shikigami ☯'Jaba & Waka' ☯'Mai' ☯'Miki & Maki' ☯'Moemi' ☯'Momo' Danmaku Her normal danmaku are black ribbons that explode on contact, which she often manipulates in mid-flight to twist them into complicated patterns and shapes. Perhaps a bit uncharacteristically for someone so shy, she tends to be very showy with her danmaku, often forming beautiful and intricate patterns that are meant to impress as much as hurt. Just don't actually compliment her on them, as such a thing tends to embarrass her very easily. Spell Cards Note: Since she has so much difficulty talking to people, she usually announces her spell cards via illusionary writing, rather than through speech. ☯'Spell Cards' ☯'Splash Cards' Residence She lives in a mansion in the Forest of Magic, on the furthest edge from the Human Village. While this mansion is much smaller than something like the Scarlet Devil Mansion, it is still quite large and, like the Scarlet Devil Mansion, is much bigger on the inside, thanks to Meimei's ability to manipulate appearances. The mansion itself can be seen as something of an extension of Meimei, changing and shifting around according to her whims, but it does have some more or less static features, such as the library where Meimei keeps her extensive collection of books and can be found the majority of the time. From the outside, the mansion usually resembles a medieval Western-style house made primarily of stone bricks, and on the inside the floors and walls are typically also made of stone. Because of this it has been said by some to feel more like a castle than like a mansion. Besides Meimei, the mansion is also populated by her hundreds of pet cats, as well as by a small staff of shikigami, which run it from day to day. These shikigami are mainly devils, and Moemi, the strongest of these devils, is the one who usually delegates tasks to the rest of the servants, though she still answers to Mai. The mansion is typically kept under a barrier spell of sorts, courtesy of Miki whose ability is to lock things; this barrier keeps anyone from entering without the permission of either Meimei or her shikigami, but it isn't perfect, as beings like Yukari can still bypass it easily. It does keeps most ordinary intruders out, though, and it also has the side effect of stopping things like bugs and other pests from getting in. Trivia * Her given name, "Meimei", is a Japanese word meaning "dark" or "invisible". Meanwhile, her surname, "Teshaneko", is a corruption of the Japanese for Cheshire cat, "Cheshaa neko". * While she can use her ability to create edible food, she is not very good at replicating the exact tastes of things, so any food she makes is usually either very bland or very off-tasting. It doesn't help that she's a terrible cook, too. Category:Characters Category:Females